bers of the Government, the Government meant that the persons selected should have the special qualifications mentioned in the statute. Moreover, from their acts under the statute, which he referred to, he contended that the Government knew they were wrong in appointing Sir R. Collier, and that he himself knew it was wrong, the only point on which he found fault with Sir. R. Collier being that he had offered himself to the Lord Chancellor. Canvassing next the terms in which Sir Roundell Palmer had moved an amendment, he challenged Sir Roundell Palmer, or any one else, to ask Parliament to approve the appointment, and wound up by comparing the transaction to the Royal Warrant of last year, the Ewelme Rectory affair, and other acts of arbitrary power.

Mr. Goldney seconded the motion, characterizing the appointment as a revival of the dispensing power, and contending that the Government was bound to regard the qualifications prescribed by the Act or else to ask Parliament to repeal them.

Sir Roundell Palmer moved, as an amendment, that the House sees no just cause for censure in the appointment. Replying, first, to the criticisms on the language of his amendment, Sir Roundell said he should consider it a just cause of censure if the Government had violated the Act in its substance or in its letter, if they had broken faith with Parliament, if they had exercised legal powers for a wrong purpose, or if they had appointed an incompetent person. But he denied that they had committed any one of these offences, and, though there might have been indiscretion and a wrong view of the statute, there was no cause for Parliamentary censure. Sir Roundell admitted that judicial qualification had always been associated in his mind with these appointments, and that at first he had doubted whether the Government would find the appointment consistent with the statute. But when it came to a matter of Parliamentary censure, the test must be not any man's private idea of the meaning of the statute, but the statute itself. Then, discussing the statute, Sir Roundell denied that judicial experience was embodied in it as a qualification for these appointments; it was judicial status alone which was required. Moreover, judicial experience never had been required as a qualification for the Appellate Court. Under the old system, the Vice-Chancellors became members of the Judicial Committee when they were raised to the Bench. Lord Cairns, Sir J. Rolt, Sir J. Selwyn, and Lord Justice Mellish had been sent to the Court of Appeal straight from the Bar, and Lord Kingsdown never had any judicial experience at all. Proceeding next to deal with the assertion of the Resolution, that the appointment was a violation of the spirit and intention of the statute, Sir Roundell expounded at length, with many quotations from Story, Lord Brougham, and Lord Cranworth, and others, the rules for construing statutes, and maintained that Parliament would not be justified in going outside of the statute for the purpose of passing a censure. As to the simultaneous appointment to the Common Pleas and the Privy Council, he admitted that if it were

done wantonly and capriciously, and over and over again, he would not defend it. But this objection of cumulation could only apply if the man appointed were unfit for the first place to which he was appointed, or if, according to the true intention of the Act, judicial experience was necessary. The Government, he asserted, might legally appoint a man to a post if he were fit before he had the qualification, provided they intended and were able to give him the qualification. Sir Robert Collier was fit to be made a Judge of the Common Pleas, and the Queen made him; he then was qualified for the Judicial Committee, and the Queen promoted him. The process was right because the end was right, and the means legal. With regard to the Indian qualification, however, Sir Roundell admitted that to have made a man an Indian Chief Justice not to go to India, but merely to qualify him, would have been objectionable. Finally, he vindicated the motives of the Government, which, whether they had made a mistake or not, did not deserve Parliamentary censure; and touching on the results which must follow the adoption of the motion, he pointed to the consequences to Sir R. Collier, and the danger of lowering the dignity and usefulness of

the office.

Mr. Goldsmid seconded the amendment, and Mr. S. Hill spoke in favour of the motion.

Mr. Watkin Williams, speaking from the Liberal benches, regretted that the Ministerial explanation had confirmed his first impression that the Government had deliberately violated and strained the declared intention of the Legislature in order to extricate themselves from a fancied practical difficulty. According to all the rules governing the interpretation of statutes-for which he quoted Puffendorf and Grotius-judicial experience was required.

Mr. Serjeant Simon, on the contrary, maintained that the spirit of the Act included no reference to judicial experience; while Mr. Charley supported the motion.

The Lord Advocate asked whether the complaint and the occasion were worthy of the attention of Parliament. No imputation of jobbery and corruption had ever been advanced, the legality of the transaction was admitted, and Sir R. Collier's fitness was not denied. At some length, and amid many signs of impatience, the Lord Advocate went on to argue that Sir R. Collier's qualification was not merely colourable, but was consonant with the intention of the Act in the broadest sense.

Mr. Denman, who supported the vote of censure from the Liberal benches, prefaced his reasons by some references to his personal position. He had been pressed by his friends not to speak or vote lest it should be ascribed to disappointment, but he held it to be the basest cowardice to prefer interest to duty, and to refrain from doing right from fear of wrong motives being attributed. For many Sessions he had been Mr. Gladstone's zealous supporter, and for this he appealed to the former experience of the Speaker.

The Lord Chancellor, he insisted, had been guilty of a grave dereliction of duty, and if not actually censured, it ought to be understood to be censured, lest it should become a precedent to future high-handed Governments with a majority behind them. He did not admit, as some supporters of the motion had, the legality of the act. At any rate, Parliament had a right to say that an act was a violation of the spirit of the statute, if it was contrary to the intention of Parliament when it passed the statute. He reviewed

at length the history of the Act and the speeches of the Lord Chancellor and Sir R. Collier to show that it was always contemplated that the selection should be from a limited class, and that there should be judicial experience. As one negative proof of this he mentioned that when the Bill was in Committee he had been asked to move a clause making Attorney-Generals and exAttorney-Generals eligible, and it was suggested to him that Sir Roundell Palmer thought this ought to be done. (Sir Roundell Palmer here interposed, and said such a thing had never entered his mind.) Examining the various excuses offered for the Government, Mr. Denman said he knew of two Judges, old Liberal M.P's., and one of whom had been Solicitor-General, who were much hurt that no offer had been made to them, and also that no offer had been made to any of the Queen's Bench Judges. Discerning in recent acts a disposition on the part of the Government to break down. some of the securities for liberty involved in the independence of the Courts of Justice, he urged the House to mark its sense of the appointment in a manner which would prevent its repetition.

Mr. Craufurd maintained that the appointment was within the purview of the statute, and inferred that the motion was not only a party motion but a personal motion from the hands in which it had been placed.

Mr. Hardy, after some observations in defence of the Lord Chief Justice, argued that the Government by its conduct had shown its sense that limitations had been imposed on their choice, and it was clear that the Lord Chancellor would have gone on appealing to the Judges if Mr. Gladstone had not suggested to him a way out of the limitations. But if limitations could thus be got rid of by the Executive at their will, he agreed that the "dispensing power" was revived. Recent experience-the presentation to the Rectory of Ewelme, for instance-made him very apprehensive as to Mr. Gladstone's dealings with Acts of Parliament, and, disclaiming party motives, he urged the House to adopt the resolution for the protection of the law.

Mr. Gladstone reminded the House that this was a judicial motion, and protested therefore against the introduction of irrelevant topics for the sake of prejudice, such as the Rectory of Ewelme. He complained of the ambiguity of the resolution, for if it was a mere error or misconstruction of a statute the extinction of the Government was too severe a punishment. But he accepted the charge as much more serious-the knowing and wilful violation of

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a statute-and if he had been guilty of that, he should deserve not merely exclusion from office but from Parliament altogether. In discussing this charge he pointed out the admissions made in debate -that the statute had been obeyed and that a competent man had been appointed-in fact, a more than competent man, looking to the presumptive right of an Attorney-General. He added that, before taking any public steps towards appointing Sir R. Collier, the Government had applied unsuccessfully to three Judges, and without such a resource as Sir R. Collier would have been brought into serious practical difficulty, having regard to the dignity of the office. This, however, he admitted, did not justify them in violating a statute, but this, he maintained, they had not done. There was no dispute as to the letter of the statute; it was merely somebody's idea of the intention of the statute which the Government was accused of violating. The theory of the statute on which the Government acted was that the qualification was judicial status, and that judicial experience was merely an element among others. That was the plain meaning of the Act, according to the only safe mode of construing statutes, and the burden of proof to the contrary lay on Mr. Cross. He confessed that the Government did not anticipate the stir which the affair had made. If they had it would have been foolish to provoke it. But was ever capital punishment inflicted on a Government for so slender a crime, especially as it was admitted that the statute had been obeyed, and the public interest not injured, and that considerable practical difficulties had occurred? Finally, Mr. Gladstone urged the consequences of an adverse vote to Sir R. Collier, and still more to the relations between the Judges and the Legislature, and impressed on the House the danger of passing legislative condemnations on fanciful interpretations of the intentions of statutes.

Lord Elcho supported the motion. On a division, it was negatived by a majority of 27-268 to 241. Sir Roundell Palmer's amendment was then agreed to.

As the amendment was in fact to the effect that the appointment was not deserving of Parliamentary censure, Liberal members were able conscientiously to vote with their party on a question which only involved the issue of greater or less culpability; but seven firm supporters of the Government, besides Mr. Denman, felt themselves bound to vote against the amendment, and a much larger number indicated their opinion by absenting themselves from the division. The names of eighty members do not appear in the list of either votes or pairs.

A similar charge of evasion of statutory law had been brought against Mr. Gladstone with reference to his appointment of Mr. Harvey to the rectory of Ewelme. The statute provided that the rector of that parish should be a member of the Oxford Convocation, and Mr. Harvey, whom the Premier wished to appoint, having been educated at Cambridge, was made a member of the Oxford Convocation in order to satisfy the statute. This transaction also was

made the subject of parliamentary inquiry by Mr. Mowbray. Premising that he did not impugn the personal fitness of Mr. Harvey, he traced the history of the ecclesiastical changes and the legislation leading up to the appointment, which, he maintained, was a direct and wanton violation of the Act of Parliament and of the Statutes of the University, and had led to most reprehensible delay. The words limiting the presentation to a member of the Convocation of Oxford, he mentioned, had been introduced into the Act by the Lord. Chancellor, and Mr. Harvey, he argued, by reference to the statutes, considering that he had only appeared before the Vice-Chancellor on the 22nd of November, would not be a member of Convocation or entitled to be presented to the rectory until next May. The document, therefore, under the Great Seal presenting Mr. Harvey contained a misstatement. Mr. Mowbray also controverted Mr. Gladstone's assumption that he had an unlimited area of selection for the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford.

Mr. Gladstone repeated that it was no business of his whether Mr. Harvey had gone through the forms of qualification or had failed to comply with the Oxford statutes. There was no parallel, he contended, between this and Sir R. Collier's case, because the Government had no power to confer the qualification for office; nor had the qualification anything to do with the duties of the post. He denied that "membership of Convocation" implied education at the University, and if the words introduced in the Lords had been understood so to limit the rights of the Crown, it would have been his duty to advise the Crown to withhold its assent. Mr. Harvey by what he had done was as much a member of Convocation as Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Mowbray. It was not a colourable qualification which he had acquired, but one solid, substantial, and perfect. Nevertheless, he admitted that primâ facie the natural course would have been to look for an Oxford man in the absence of reasons to the contrary, and these reasons Mr. Gladstone explained were the recommendations he had received as to Mr. Harvey's eminence as a divine, and his ill-health, which made his immediate removal to a more salubrious neighbourhood desirable.

Mr. Hardy contended that the Act intended the qualification of membership of Convocation to exist at the time the presentation was made. Otherwise, as nullum tempus occurrit reginæ, an undergraduate might have been chosen, and the living kept open until he took his degree. Whether the Premier approved the restriction or not, he was bound to observe it, and not to interpret the statute wantonly and arbitrarily.

Mr. Henley thought it a pity that the Premier should have laid himself open to disagreeable remarks which he could not gainsay. The people at Ewelme understood their rector was to be an Oxford man; but Mr. Harvey could no more be made an Oxford man than a Blackamoor could be washed white. Country people said, "It aint honest; who could have believed the Prime Minister would have done such a thing?"